Brother Wins Arrest in '64 Case

Network News

-- As a deacon at Bunkley Baptist Church, Charles Marcus Edwards was responsible for opening up for Sunday school. And so on that sultry Mississippi morning, he and his wife were the first to arrive at the tiny brick chapel.

A minivan pulled into the gravel drive behind them. A black man got out of the van and approached, followed by a younger white man carrying a video camera. Betty Edwards gave them a friendly wave.

"Mr. Edwards," the black man said, extending a hand with a sealed manila envelope. "I have something for you, sir."

"What is this?" the 72-year-old deacon asked, bemused.

Inside were pages from an unfinished story.

The nine sheets, copied from a 42-year-old FBI file, told a tale of Ku Klux Klansmen and secret codes and terror. They told, in gruesome detail, of the kidnap, torture and slaying of two black men _ Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore.

Edwards limped quickly toward the church and climbed the three steps. At the top, he stopped and turned.

"What's your name, fella?" the elderly white man asked.

"My name is Moore," the stranger replied. "Thomas James Moore."

The reputed former Klansman moved to enter the sanctuary, then paused and turned again.

"I'm going to tell you, fella," he said, gesturing down at Moore with the church keys in one hand and his Bible clutched in the other. "I DID not kill your brother. I didn't have, I didn't have anything to do with that."

As Edwards disappeared inside the darkened church, his wife jiggled the door handle to make sure it was locked, then slammed it behind her. As the cameraman filmed, Moore walked back to the van, a satisfied grin on his face.